TL;DR: Harder variants of the bosses that show up as Mirages, scaled up to be a challenge for max level high gear players, changes and additions to their arena and moves, unique rewards for defeating them
In the Dark Sea, there could be a chance for a ruined/atlantean themed version of a boss arena to show up, wherein a Phantom version of the boss will be, a more dangerous version of the Mirages that are found normally. Their stats and rewards will scale up with the insanity level of the Dark Sea.
These Phantom bosses would be scaled up to give max level, well equipped players a run for their money, and would also have unique variants of their original moves. The rewards for defeating the Phantoms could be loot one would find in the area they are normally found, or some more unique loot themed around the boss. Perhaps something similar to how Atlantean enemy vanity looks? There could also be more generic loot such as dark sealed chests. Due to how the Graveyard works, I would want to avoid the Phantoms dropping items from the Mirage bosses.
Phantom Island Spawning
Phantom Islands will first start appearing in Insanity 2. They have no chance of appearing as the first island you find in Insanity 2, but as more islands spawn, the chance will ramp up considerably. When an island spawns, the increased spawn rate is reset. This is to keep the Phantom Bosses from being commonplace, prevent multiple Phantom Islands from appearing in a row (which would make them feel too mundane), and to prevent droughts of not finding a Phantom. To accommodate players that do not wish to fight the Phantom Bosses, the chance of finding Phantom Islands will be reduced if they are skipped. This resets after leaving the Dark Sea.
On the Phantom Islands, you can find treasures scattered around like other Dark Sea islands, especially in locations where they would be in the areas the Mirages are in where applicable. Each Phantom Island has a Graveyard, located somewhere far away from the boss’ spawn location, near where the player would be expected to land on the island.
The Graveyard
The Graveyard has three functions: The most important is that it will have five blue Spirit Torches by default that indicate how many attempts you have to defeat the Phantom Boss. You do not respawn immediately when you die, you must wait for all players fighting the Phantom to be out of combat, dead, or incapacitated (if you are in a party and go to 0 health in the Dark Sea, you have a small amount of time where you can be revived). When all players that have engaged the Phantom are dead, a torch will go out, and everyone will respawn on their ships if they are reasonably close to the island, choosing a party member’s ship or a random ship within range of the island if the ship is gone. If there are no ships nearby, a wrecked ship will be spawned in for the players to sit on. After respawning, the island will regenerate except for the treasures that have been taken, and during this process a dark mist will block entry to the island so nobody gets stuck. If the Graveyard has no lit torches, dying will respawn you back in the sea you entered from, as usual.
The second function of the Graveyard is that once you defeat the Phantom, you can sacrifice a normal item from the Mirage boss to guarantee the next Phantom Island will be the one that dropped said item as a mere Mirage. The third is that any remaining Spirit Torches may be picked up as items, and you can use them at other Graveyards for extra lives, or trade them to other players. The Spirit Torches are boss specific (so you can’t use Spirit Torches from Phantom Iris to gain extra attempts for Phantom Calvus).
Phantom Boss Examples
Phantom Iris
The arena would be a melted version of Frostmill. Enizor’s tower has fallen into the water, the mine has collapsed, the town of Frostmill is in ashes, and so are the bandits. Phantom Iris is at the top of Frostmill, around where she would be normally.
The main twist to the fight is the island - Iris’ attacks will continue to melt the island, leaving less ground for the player to walk on. If Iris is falling off the island, she has limited flight capabilities to get back to land. She will have some additional attacks in this fight:
- The big beam move she uses during the Eternal Mines escape sequence, it has fairly high knockback if not blocked.
- Supernova - A high damage, high destruction, high knockback self-explosion, used if players are too close when she is on the ground.
- Solar Sphere - First, she uses an aura (this is for visual effect to let the player know the attack is on its way), goes high into the air, and begins charging a massive Cannon-like blast. The blast is fired at the player closest to the center of Frostmill. It moves slowly, and must be reduced in size by attacking it. If it is not attacked, it will unleash a massive, high damage explosion on impact, which will likely destroy a large part of the island. Attacks clashing with the Solar Sphere will reduce the size of the blast, and the damage, size, and destruction of the explosion.
- Solar Rays - A very small laser with very high range. It is only used if a player is in the water, targets all players in the fight that Iris has line of sight to, in addition to always targeting players in the water and piercing any obstacles to hit them. Its purpose is to punish the players for falling into the water. It should be difficult to dodge.
- Rain of Stars - A barrage of scattered blasts to carpet the arena in explosions. These do not cause a whole lot of destruction, but can be very damaging to players if there is enough overlap. She will be targeting the ground with this move, so as Frostmill melts, the blasts could end up grouped closer together.
- Aphelion - If there is nowhere for Iris to stand, Iris will hover in the air and begin spamming Solar Rays until the fight ends. Due to the difficulty of dodging and the high damage per second, player should not expect to survive this move for long, and must avoid losing all of Frostmill’s land to avoid this move being used.
Some ideas I had for unique rewards for defeating Phantom Iris:
- Vanity items that look like they would come from Frostmill people that got fried by an unchecked Iris
- The Vermilion Demon’s Bracelet, a level cap version of the Vermilion Bracelet with more intense particle effects. The stats I imagine would be equivalent or similar to whatever stats a future Flare Arcanium Bracelet would have.
- Iris skin for quartermasters/deckhands/crew? Part of me thinks it’d be absurd to not restrict it to only having one in use at a time, part of me thinks it would be comedy gold.
Phantom Calvus
The ruins of Ravenna Castello is what you’ll see as the arena for Phantom Calvus, where he sits upon a ruined throne. Near where the door is, there is a skeleton among some rubble.
Being already a fun fight with plenty of unique moves, here are some ideas for changes to spice up the fight:
- Unconquerable Reign (taking the name from the wiki, which says Reign is the name of his nuke move) - Unlike the original Reign move, this one cannot be interrupted, which is a double edged sword - it provides an opportunity to throw out some damage without needing to dodge, but you’re going to get nuked. The players will need to be ready to block when the attack is unleashed.
- Combo Mix-Ups - Instead of using his combo moves in the same order every time, he may mix it up. For example, he could do the move where he goes towards the player with a slam first. He will still use all the moves in the combo, in order to keep the consistent pattern, just requiring the players to keep an eye on which moves have been used, rather than waiting for the slam at player’s location.
- Javelin of Bronze - If he throws his Triasta, it will emit a Javelin-like effect where it lands. The move is a bit undeserving of an end-game boss otherwise.
In his second phase, Calvus will empower his attacks with the fraction of the Apocalypse Bringer curse he inherited as usual, but he will also cast Heavenly Array to begin the second phase. He also gets a few new attacks:
- Ultimate Art: Heavenly Array - Upon entering the second phase, the sky will be filled with a dome of delayed blasts that will fire towards the players in the fight over time. When he would cast Array normally, some of the blasts will reappear in the sky. Heavenly Array will stop firing during Unconquerable Reign. The blasts are not as frequent as normal Array shots, so you may be able to squeeze in some quick hits.
- Triasta of the Apocalypse - Instead of only using a beam attack in the second phase in place of throwing the Triasta, he can throw the Triasta during the second phase, and it will charge up a big explosion where it landed. Players will need to keep this in mind when avoiding Cavlus’ other attacks.
Ideas for rewards for defeating Phantom Calvus:
- The Throne of Ravenna as a decoration for building or any future building-like features. Could come in both ruined and whole variants.
- Atlantean Triasta - An Atlantean version of the Triasta of Bronze, similar to other Atlantean weapons.
- Modified Ravenna items - Some Modified Ravenna item variants are unobtainable to my knowledge (eg. Abyssal, Frozen), this would give them a way to drop.
Phantom Argos
Fort Talos, eroded by the Dark Sea, is where you will find Phantom Argos. The secret entrance is caved in, so you will have to enter through the abandoned fortress.
Phase 1 of the fight will see Argos using the Lion’s Halberd and the Lance of Loyalty. The trick to this phase of the fight is the four pillars that are on the sides of the room - they will take damage from the Lion’s Halberd.
Argos will start off with the Lance, and after a handful of moves will switch to the Halberd. When he does this, he will move to the center of the room and do a Mighty Smash (once again, I am using the wiki’s listed names), damaging the pillars. This serves as a time limit for Phase 1: if you don’t have a pillar left to hide behind, you’re in trouble, but more on that later. The Lion’s Halberd has a new attack:
- Lion’s Upheaval - Argos slams the ground with the Halberd in the direction of a player, and a wave of stone will home in on the player. It doesn’t turn very well, dodging should avoid it. As the wave travels, it will leave behind a wall of stone that will stick around, requiring the player to move around or destroy it.
After some moves using the Halberd, Argos will switch to the Lance, and will use the Lance’s new attack as his first attack with the lance:
- Wall of Lances: Argos will stab several times in the general direction of the players, spawning ethereal lances. After a short delay, the lances will go flying. They will be scattered even if the player stands still, so players will need to be careful to not run into an incoming lance while dodging the others.
At half health, Argos will go to the center of the room and use a supercharged Mighty Smash, and if you don’t hide behind a pillar, expect to take very high damage. The pillars will be destroyed, and he will switch to Cursebane.
Phase 2 is very similar to his normal third phase, with some changed and new attacks:
- Devourer’s Instinct - Similar to the Beast Instinct-like move, except this one will also send out flying slashes at random.
- Cursed Cleave - A massive 180 degree horizontal slash, there is a charge time so players have time to get to the safe side of Argos. Argos will always target the center of the room using this move. If a player tries to jump to avoid this move, he will use a second Cursed Cleave aimed up from the ground to catch the mid-air player.
- Reaping Strike - Argos will leap at a player, holding Cursebane horizontally or vertically to indicate how the player must dodge. The horizontal strike is at an angle towards the ground, so the player will want to dodge forwards or backwards; the vertical strike, the player will want to dodge to the side.
Once he is at 0 health, Argos will go to the center of the room again to try another Mighty Smash, but the roof collapses. Instead of being crushed underneath however, Argos lifts up the rubble, and with all his might pushes the fort up, and the shockwave sends the players flying into the air. What is left of Fort Talos is a crater, some ruined walls lining the perimeter, and the Lion of Ravenna in his prime.
Phase 3: Argos is fully healed, and will freely alternate between all of his weapons, using every move from Phase 1 and 2. Thanks to Fort Talos being destroyed, the arena is expanded, but Prime Argos is more than agile enough to keep up with the players. At half health, Argos will use one of three Ultimate Arts:
- Mighty Whirlwind - Argos goes to the center of the arena with the Lion’s Halberd and begins charging. Players must get on top of the ruins of Fort Talos or suffer extreme damage and high knockback. A tornado will form, picking up debris and destroyable objects, such as ones from Lion’s Upheaval, and will send them flying randomly towards the ground for a duration.
- Rain of Lances - Argos jumps very high into the air, and lances begin raining from the sky upon the players’ heads. They land with a moderate AoE, and deal moderate damage, but apply a debuff that will increase damage taken. After some time, Argos will slam into the center of the arena for a gigantic AoE that does moderately high damage - unless you took too many hits from the initial rain of lances.
- Devourer’s Rampage - Starting from one side of the arena, Argos begins using Devourer’s Instinct, travelling slowly to the other side of the arena. Getting too close will draw you in. After reaching the other side of the arena, Argos will use Cursed Cleave with a reduced delay.
Reward ideas:
- A skill scroll that allows larger weapons such as greatswords to use Beast Instinct.
- A shard of the Devourer that took the Cloud Curse as an amulet, reducing energy regeneration in exchange for a healthy amount of stats (Maybe whatever stats a Cloud Arcanium item would have?)
- An Atlantean version of Lion’s Halberd or Lance of Loyalty - the Lance could be one of the big sea urchin spines
Phantom Elius
Elius’ arena is a bit different - instead of being a ruined version of the island he is normally fought on, it is a wrecked Harvest Island, with the main part of Djin Island having crashed down upon it, having been directly above. The whirlpools have dissipated, the ground of Harvest Island is fractured into separate platforms with small gaps between them, and in the center sits Djin Island, and waiting in the ruins therein is Phantom Elius. As a small Easter egg, the small side sky island with the tree is still up above, you might be able to reach it with a maxed out Gale potion.
Elius will jump/dash from place to place to travel just like in his original fight, but instead of sticking to Djin Island’s pillars, he will travel around Harvest Island as well. To keep the pressure up, some attacks will be thrown out as he moves:
- Slash and Dash - A flying slash. He will use this if a player is close by.
- Triple Thunder - Three fast-moving lightning blasts fired along the path he took.
Phase 1: Elius will target a player, and jump around to get to a position close to said player, then use an attack based on the positions of the players (eg. if there are players close by, he will use melee attacks). If all players are nearby, he’ll move away. In addition to all of his normal attacks, he has a few new attacks in his arsenal:
- Conductive Cannon - The Cannon spell, he will use this if players are hiding behind cover.
- Thunderstorm of Arrows - Elius shoots a single lightning arrow into the sky above. For a long duration, a scattered rain of lightning-infused arrows will rain down across the island, with visual indicators of when and where they will land. When they land, they will explode with Lightning magic, dealing solid damage in a fairly large AoE. Elius will try to keep this attack going as often as possible.
- Static Spear - Elius’ spear throws will paralyze on hit. In addition, if they hit the ground, they will linger for some time, with a large electric field around them that will explode if a player runs into it.
- Blade Bolt - An improved Blade Rush (the move where he slashes multiple times), Elius will overshoot the target when slashing, and leave a magic circle. After a small delay, lightning will strike the magic circle.
Phase 2: At half health, Ancient Lightning will surge towards Elius, and the rain of the Dark Sea will cease around the island. All of his moves will now use Ancient Lightning. His travel time is now nearly instant, still sending out the travel attacks during each step of travel. His behavior also changes - he will choose an attack at random and move to an appropriate location to strike the players. Along with some upgrades for his normal moves, he gains a few new attacks as well:
- Electrocution - Elius unleashes a constant ray of lightning towards a target player for around 10 seconds. Very high damage, and Elius will position himself so there is little cover to hide behind, but the move has a limited turn rate, so as you get closer it will be possible to evade the attack.
- Thunder Tether - Elius throws his spear and it explodes in a large radius on impact. Players caught in the explosion will be tethered to the spear by lightning and need to destroy it to break free. While tethered, players are limited in their movement to stay within a certain distance of the spear, and if they are outside that distance they will be dragged back towards the spear. Elius will focus attacks on the tethered players. The spear will travel through players, tethering them as it travels.
- Shock Wave - Elius will hold up one of his Scimitars to charge it with lightning. Elius then dashes to a target player for a single very high damage unimbued slash, followed by a horizontal Lightning-imbued slash aimed at the same player. A lingering electric field will follow behind the flying slash, which will deal further damage if the player enters it. If the target player is tethered, Elius will re-position to line up the player and the spear before using the flying slash.
- Storm Breaker - A very high damage shot similar to Bow Breaker, but where it hits, large lightning strikes will cascade out in a plus shape over a long distance.
Reward ideas:
- Lightning siege weapon, uses ship’s magic power, targeted similar to Mortars but calls down lightning strikes
- Javelin Throw - Skill note that Conjurers will find useful, it is the same as other spear throws but if imbued it will take on a Javelin spell-like effect.
- Ancient Thunderspear - The Noble Thunderspear, charged with Ancient Lightning, with a unique throwing move that has the Static Spear effect.
Phantom Cernyx
You’ll find Phantom Cernyx at a ruined Forest of Cernunno. The stone spires have collapsed, the trees are dead, and the Greenwish village is abandoned, save for Cernyx’s abode which he waits outside of. The swamp water will slow you down, so be careful.
The fight with Phantom Cernyx revolves around tall stone pillars that he will create using two moves - Forest of Stone and Seismic Spire. Cernyx’s other moves will interact with these pillars, causing them to violently topple over and crush anyone beneath for high damage, potentially creating a domino effect if there’s other pillars in the way. Players will need to be aware of their surroundings.
Along with Cernyx’s normal move set, he has some additional attacks:
- Ultimate Art: Forest of Stone - Cernyx raises his hands, and many magic circles appear across the island, spread evenly. After a small delay, stone pillars explode out of the magic circles, sending players beneath them flying into the air and damaging them.
- Seismic Spire - Cernyx stomps the ground, and a magic circle appears below a random player. The magic circle will perfectly track the player as long as they are on the ground, and after a delay a stone pillar will burst out of the ground, knocking players hit into the air. To avoid it, leap and move.
- Ground Spike - If a player is sent into the air by a stone pillar emerging, Cernyx will leap to the pillar and then to the player to try and grab and spike them back down towards the ground for additional damage. He may also use this move on players that spend too much time in the air.
- Leap Slam - Cernyx will leap towards a player and slam the ground, causing an explosion that will stun players.
- Burial Ground - Cernyx grabs a player and drags them along the ground for multiple small hits, following up with a small, concentrated AoE for heavy damage. Players will need to avoid the grab, or dodge to avoid the follow-up hit.
- Stone Swing - Cernyx grabs a player and swings them around, releasing them as a projectile that will deal AoE damage at the point of impact, including to the thrown player. The thrown player will need to be ready to move if they hit one of the stone pillars.
- Rockslide Cascade - Cernyx uses a Shot move aimed at a player, and three Earth Blasts follow, all fired at the same time. The blasts move at varying speeds, so they will reach their destination one after the other.
- Strike the Earth - Cernyx uses an Axe-Slash move, that will split stone pillars hit in half and make them topple perpendicular to the Axe-Slash.
- Ultimate Art: Earthquake - Cernyx leaps high into the air and slams the ground, sending out a slow-moving, wide shockwave of stone radiating outwards along the ground across the entire island. Any stone pillars hit will collapse in a large AoE, dealing heavy damage. Getting hit by the Earthquake wave will stun and deal moderate damage.
Reward ideas:
Greenwish Cultists as crew for your ship
Blessed Staff of Greenwish - Spirit weapon themed after the Cult of Greenwish
The original quest giver as a Quartermaster, he’d sometimes eat a green apple like he does on the island
Happy Fun Rock - A rock that you can throw at other players, other windows, other boats, that chump on the Forest of Cernunno that keeps eating our apples. Finally, you can have fun in Arcane Odyssey!
The intent is to have an avenue for the bosses that will be left behind as level caps and stats increase to stay relevant, to expand on what the bosses do to provide a new challenge to conquer, and add to the possibilities that the Dark Sea has for players that go there.
